Students walk down the hallway in between classes at the Science Leadership Academy.

In partnership with Temple University’s Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, the university’s capstone journalism class, students Chelsea Leposa and Jared Pass will cover neighborhood technology issues for Technically Philly and Philadelphia Neighborhoods through May.

At the Science Leadership Academy the students are treated like adults, says junior Cody Nichols.

Built in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia and the Franklin Institute, the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) is a new student-oriented, project-based program. Put away your No. 2 pencil at SLA, there are no standardized tests aside from the state required PSSAs.

Students work closely together and with teachers to create a variety of projects. Student projects even contribute to the school’s daily activities. SLA’s help desk, for instance, is one of the largest student projects, says Chris Alfano, tehe school’s system administrator and computer support specialist.

“We have about 12 students who are assigned to come here, and they pretty much take care of all the school’s repair needs,” Alfano says. All 10th and 11th graders at SLA are required to have an internship that meets once a week.

Students conduct original science experiments, build tools for green energy in engineering classes, conduct simulations of historical moments and trade video Spanish lessons with a school in another country, Principal Chris Lehmann says. “There are all kinds of rich, engaging and powerful projects kids are doing.”

SLA’s one-to-one laptop program is one aspect that makes the comprehensive student projects possible. Every SLA freshman receives an Apple MacBook to use throughout his high school career. The only cost to students is an $85 insurance fee.

Providing students with a laptop allows teachers to harness the Internet for assignments and student discussions. “It really changes the playing field,” Alfano says. SLA Web servers also harness open source tools like Moodle, which provides a home base and virtual school for students to interact beyond class time.

SLA's principal Chris Lehmann hands out report cards to students.

Student interaction with teachers is the most important aspect of SLA, in accordance with the school’s mission. In order to preserve the interaction between students and teachers the school must remain small, Lehman says. “We’re a small school by design. We’re not going to get bigger than 500 students.”

There are only 125 spots available for new freshman students next year. According to Lehmann, SLA has already received 2,000 admission applications and conducted 850 interviews for the limited amount of freshman seats.

In order to be admitted to SLA, students must go through an interview process and present a project they’ve created. Interviews are conducted by teachers as well as current students. The school currently has 484 students including its first graduating class of 117 seniors. Many seniors plan on going to college after graduation.

Although he is only a junior, Nichols is looking at colleges like Carnegie Mellon University, Drexel University and the University of Delaware. Nichols, like other SLA students, receives assistance with his college selections from a counselor.

According to SLA’s counselor, Karina Hirschfield, “Colleges in the area and outside the area seem to be excited about the program we have at SLA. Students have received close to $1 million dollars in scholarships, and we’re expecting our students to get well above that.”

SLA has made great strides towards its goal of inquiry-based learning since its inception in September 2006. ts popularity is shown in the attitude of its students.

“SLA is a great school because it brings out the best in everyone,” said Nichols.

Below, a video shot by Technically Philly contributor Jared Pass.

Two high-profile, Web-based Philadelphia startups each announced more services to their products recently.

Center City-based, event-planning social network i-Meet.com announced today its partnership with PlannerNet, a service aimed at helping its nearly 10,000 member organizations to find, rate and contract for project-based labor.

That move follows a host of new add-ons to PhindMe Mobile, a mobile Web direct-to-consumer advertising company based at Drexel University’s Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship, which came earlier this month, according to a company press release.

The new service offered by i-Meet, the brainchild of 17th and Oregon’s own John Pino, is said to identify professional meeting and event skills that are available worldwide, helping to match planner experience and projects for event organizers. It’s a move Pino hinted at during an interview with Technically Philly in May.

“In this challenging, economic environment, companies are becoming more inclined to staff their events on a project by project basis,” Pino says in a company press release. “By connecting our worldwide social network to PlannerNet, we’re… delivering qualified talent”

PhindMe’s new features are more varied, ranging from native smartphone applications to Twitter functionality.

The service will be able to publish a client’s mobile Web site as a native app for the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android operating systems, a release from CEO Chuck Sacco read. Now a company’s existing blog or any other RSS feed can be easily integrated for mobile users. PhindMe additionally boasted the addition of Twitter-powered mobile pages, featuring custom Twitter feeds and remote mobile page editing. The site also announced it would now accept international payments.

If an interview we had with Sacco from April is any indication, these new features aren’t what are on his mind.

“Our future is less about cool new features and more about ensuring we have the most efficient ways to distribute our products,” Sacco told us. “Hopefully you’ll see some new distribution deals for us where we get our products into the hands of some big players and become known as the new standard for the mobile web.”

The City Six school with the computer science cred boasted its tech influence from two different places in big ways in recent weeks.

Drexel University is planning on deploying a smart grid system that will provide real-time measurements of location-specific energy outputs across its 65-acre campus in University City, as reported by inTech yesterday. The real-time pricing technology, which will come from Conshohocken-based Viridity Energy, will give Drexel the wherewithal to purchase power at low-demand times of the day and sell excess power back to the general power grid for profit.

That bit of news followed an announcement from the school’s LeBow College of Business that three new startups were welcomed into its Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship business incubator, all with a touch of technology. The three new entrants are Ranter, a social-networking tool that allows users to text groups; Konnect.me, a business-to-business Web portal and Stabiliz Orthopaedics, which is developing bone fasteners with bio-absorbable materials, as first reported by Mike Armstrong of the Inquirer.

Those companies crashing at LeBow’s incubator will be in decidedly more energy efficient digs once the university gets its smart grid system up and running, it boasts.

The technology from Veridity, called “virtual generation,” is said to give customers the chance to develop independence from the public grid by storing and dealing power. The grid reduces energy waste by using computer monitoring instead of a switch to allocate energy resources by use.

“Drexel has a long-standing commitment to apply the University’s technical and research capabilities to solving challenges in our communities. One of the greatest challenges we face today is the ability to meet current and future power demand through investment in clean and distributed energy resources,” interim University President C.R. “Chuck” Pennoni told inTech.

The new incubator bunkmates — who join 15 other businesses housed at Baiada by Armstrong’s count — all won a competition to earn the space, in addition to seed money, including the $12,000 awarded to Stabiliz.

The 20-something principals behind the Ranter texting tool seemed to catch Armstrong’s fancy — highlighting the crush of Drexel’s recent Web news.

Ranter will have a beta version of what Armstrong called a “would-be Twitter killer,” in three months.

You’re thinking, “I wish I could design a map using Twitter that was a good user experience and utilized Google Book Search.”

Well Technically Philly reader, you’re in luck! Our fair city has a diverse slate of events this week that will make your strange hypothetical dream a reality in no time.

Get started after work on Tuesday and join the pun-loving OpenStreetMap enthusiasts over at the Prohibition Tap Room for “Mappy Hour.” Although, you shouldn’t have too much to drink, as it is awfully hard to chart the trails in Fairmount Park when you can’t walk straight.

PhillyCHI (which is not a box score for the upcoming Phillies-Cubs series) is getting together Wednesday to listen to Kyle Soucy, their former chair, talk usability testing. This is the first time in weeks that the group has held an event in city limits, so you best take El out to University City if you have been meaning to catch PhillyCHI in action.

On Thursday, you can either continue the usability theme with the UX Book Club meeting over at P’unk Ave, or you can head to Center City for the June Philly Tweetup.

Round out the week on Friday as University City continues its Google obsession with a meeting about how Google Books and Google Scholar affect librarians. Librarians, whatever you decide, please leave the card catalog alone. That thing is awesome.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.

Tuesday, June 23: There are two kinds of events held by Philly’s OpenStreetMap group: the drinking kind and the mapping kind. This one is the former as the group is socializing and talking cartography in Center City. If you have a GIS (geographic information systems) itch to scratch, we recommend you show, as they are beginning to plan their next mapping party set for the end of the summer. 6:30 p.m. Center City. RSVP. [view more events]

Wednesday, June 24: If you’re new to the concept of usability testing read Don’t Make Me Think, then head on over to this week’s PhillyCHI meeting where Kyle Soucy will teach you everything the laymen needs to know. Demos will be available as Saucy covers everything from different testing techniques, to making sure you should be testing in the first place. And she would know, Saucy has had clients as large as the pharmaceutical company giant Pfizer and is the former head of PhillyCHI. 6:00 p.m. University City. RSVP. [view more events]

Thursday, June 25: Make it two days of UX in a row at the venerable P’unk Ave for a chat about the book Art and Fear with the UX bookclub. Kind of like Oprah’s book club, but less “Tom Cruise jumping on couches” and more “books about avoiding mission creep in design projects.” If you can’t make it out, or you haven’t read the book, next month’s pick is A Project Guide to UX Design. We expect a report on our desk by Friday. 6:30 p.m. Passyunk Square. RSVP. [view more events]

Thursday June 25: If user experience isn’t your cup of tea, this month’s Philly Tweetup should provide you with a breezy alternative. The city’s Twitterers will be gathering at McGillins, a bar that is easy to miss being tucked away on Drury Lane. We hope the city’s most popular users don’t all show up at once, lest the Center City cell phone towers crumble under the weight of a tweet every 3.4 seconds. 6:30 p.m. Center City. RSVP. [view more events].

Friday, June 26: As any journalist can tell you, Google can shake up entire industries and turn them upside down. Google Book Search has recently been catching heat from the publishing industry and the U.S. Government and Google Scholar has caught the attention of researchers. Affected by both, local librarians and publishers are gathering at Drexel to talk about the search giant’s role in their respective industries with Drexel’s iSchool. No word on whether a Bing session is planned. 9:00 a.m. University City. RSVP. [view more events]

Assuming the feeling is mutual, while we’re not expecting you to spend your evenings relaxing in parks or sipping cocktails on sidewalk cafes, we are sayin’ it’s an excuse to get to some local tech events.

There’s something going on every day of this week, if you have an hour (or five) to spare.

On Monday, Refresh Philly is brainstorming up ways to improve Philly with special guests Johnny Goldstein of Envizualize and Livia Labate of IA Design Games to help smooth out the process and explain how they get their ideas out on paper.

Tuesday, talk mobile apps for social change with the Net Tuesday crew, but don’t get too hippie-dippy on us. Web Analytics Wednesday is flying in two speakers from behavioral analytics firm Quantivo to discuss the obvious.

Drexel’s 2009 Entrepreneur Conference happens Thursday, an all-day event with a great lineup of speakers there to talk all things innovation and business.

Finally, on Saturday don’t miss HigherEdCamp, which we covered late last month. After hosting our own BarCamp unconference, we have high expectations for this meetup about all things post-secondary education.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more information, or follow us past the jump.

Monday, June 1: Brainstorm ways to Refresh Philly with help from Johnny Goldstein of Envizualize and Livia Labate of IA Games who have some tips on getting those thoughts to paper in creative ways. 6 p.m., Center City. RSVP. [view more events]

Tuesday, June 2: Members of the Net Tuesday crew return from the 4th annual NetSquared to report on interesting mobile apps for social change they saw at the conference. And no, that doesn’t mean the iPhone breathalyzer app. 6 p.m., Old City. RSVP. [view more events]

Wednesday, June 3: You wanna talk about clout? Let’s do that. Web Analytics Wednesday has two peeps from Quantivo flying in from California to discuss behavioral analytics for the Philly scene. Oh yeah, the first round of drinks is on them. You can bet your metrics there’s gonna be a second round. 6:30 p.m., Old City. RSVP. [view more events]

Thursday, June 4: Desperate times call for desperate measures, and entrepreneurship is often better for it. Reps from Elizabethtown College, Morgan Lewis, Drexel, Disc Makers and Wawa will help prove the point at Drexel’s 2009 Entrepreneur Conference. 8:00 a.m., University City. RSVP. [view more events]

Friday, June 5: Springboard Media will host a free session for learning how to backup your most important files. Whether it’s your Stoya video collection or your work files, don’t miss it. 5:00 p.m., Center City West. RSVP. [view more events]

Saturday, June 6: Philly’s latest BarCamp-style unconference, HigherEdCamp, will be held this weekend to discuss higher education among local university innovators and techies. Be sure to check our coverage of organizer Dave Konopka for more. 9:00 a.m., University City. RSVP. [view more events]

Every Monday morning, Technically Philly will preview the best free tech events in Philadelphia and the surrounding region. See others here. Check our comprehensive events calendar here.

It’s a helluva school project.

While completing MBA degrees at Drexel University in 2006, Chuck Sacco, Doug Bellenger and two others founded PhindMe Mobile, with vague plans on improving the mobile Web-based interaction between businesses and their customers.

Since then, two have bailed and now CEO Sacco and COO Bellenger are leading a small team crafting the future of mobile Web direct-to-consumer advertising.

Sacco, who did his undergraduate work at St. Joseph’s University, has a few technology startups in his past and has learned from them, he said.

“For me, it’s always been about having platforms where you can plug in functions and take them into new markets as the world changes,” he said.

PhindMe, has to be an example of that – one on which Sacco was willing to bet. He and Bellenger put in about $80,000 of their own capital to launch, and last June they borrowed nearly $225,000 more from friends and family, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. They launched in October, and they say they’ll break even as early as June – helped by the national attention they’ve gotten in advertising communities.

Below see how the South Jersey native – who says he has “always considered Philadelphia as home” – describes PhindMe’s future and for whom the alumnus of St. Joe’s and Drexel cheers in Big Five basketball.

Transcript of interview was edited for length and clarity.

1. Tell us about PhindMe Mobile and why we should be paying attention.
   PhindMe Mobile is part of what is an emerging $8 billion mobile web content market.  That market is the massive shift of information from one media – PC-based Web – to another – mobile-based web. But it’s more than just providing a way to get good, relevant content accessible on mobile devices. It’s providing businesses with a way to leverage that content to improve their marketing to an increasingly mobile consumer.
   Since we built a platform to scale in a big way, we’re not going after a small number of big projects. And we’re not trying to be seen as a development tool. For us, it’s really about how to do we make it as easy as possible to get as many businesses using our tools as possible.  It should be as easy as email or blogging.
   
2. So what do you offer customers?
   We have evolved quite a lot since our initial concept. At that time, we were just looking at how to use the GPS feature on cell phones to help consumers find local business information. Even though only a few years ago, this was before the iPhone, before text messaging really took off, and before a lot of the mainstream interest in social networks. Our focus was providing timely and relevant information about any business to consumers.
   From our original concept, we evolved the business model a couple of times, eventually figuring that the core problem for consumers was going to be the lack of readable and actionable-information content about businesses. While businesses have a lot of web-based information, very little of it is natively useful on a cell-phone Internet browser, largely due to the differences in the medium – remember the old adage “the medium is the message.” So we set out to solve that problem by giving businesses a tool to help them deliver content to consumers in a way that is easily digestible and actionable.
3. What is PhindMe’s relationship to Drexel?
   We are big fans of Drexel, especially their LeBow School of Business. Because the original business concept grew out of an MBA class project that later was entered in their business plan competition, we have a strong affinity to Drexel. They have been big supporters, and moving our business into their Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship was a natural choice. We get access to great physical resources, advisers and students who have been a big part of our progress.
4. OK, you’re a big fan of Drexel, but you did your undergrad at St. Joe’s. So, who’s your horse in Big Five basketball?
   I guess my heart is still with St. Joe’s when it comes to basketball.  St. Joe’s has had some great teams over the years, and hopefully they will approach what Villanova has done recently.
5. What is the future of technology and marketing? Can Philadelphia be a major player in it?
   Marketing in the future is going to be mostly about technology. Marketing is a funny business. While there will always be the creative elements, marketing firms are by their nature not very scalable. The big firms can squeeze out margins consistently, and a lot of that has to do with the fact they use technologies in the right way. So I’d like to see Philadelphia focus in that area, determining how we can make marketing a more powerful engine for the economy.
6. What’s your take on the region’s innovation culture?
   The Philly tech scene is emerging as an amazing resource for entrepreneurs, investors and service providers alike. I’m almost getting tired of saying “it’s getting better” because I think it’s getting to the point where it is better. But it is also different. We can’t be like Silicon Valley because this isn’t Silicon Valley. That’s OK, and actually good, because what it means is that we can differentiate on the things that make us unique – people, geography, schools, etcetera. Those unique qualities seemed to have been better defined over the past couple of years by the community.
7. What is the future of PhindMe Mobile?
   Our future is less about cool new features and more about ensuring we have the most efficient ways to distribute our products. Right now we are really focused on generating leads, creating new customers and providing them a great set of tools. Hopefully you’ll see some new distribution deals for us where we get our products into the hands of some big players and become known as the new standard for the mobile web.

Every Friday, Technically Philly brings an interview with a leader or innovator in Philadelphia’s technology community. See others here.